The Silk Factory

by Judith Allnatt

  On the day after seeing the strange child in the garden, their second day in the house, Rosie answered the door to find a woman holding a bunch of flowers. She had short, dyed-blond hair and a round face that was large but nonetheless attractive with a beautiful complexion and big, calm grey eyes. She was what her mother would have tactfully called ‘well built’ but she wore tight jeans that accentuated her heavy hips, a black vest top that revealed an elaborate tattoo on her shoulder, and a chunky silver pendant that pulled the cotton material of her top tight over her breasts. The overall impression was of a woman who was happy with her size and wasn’t about to hide it. Her clothes seemed to say, ‘So, I’m big! Deal with it!’

  She held the flowers out to Rosie, saying, ‘For you. I heard about your mum; I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Rosie took them: cornflowers, poppies and lavender held together by an elastic band. ‘They’re lovely.’

  ‘I’m Tally – from next door. I saw you arrive the night before last but I thought you might want some time to settle in so I left it till now.’

  ‘Come in, come in,’ Rosie said. ‘Come and have a coffee. It’s really kind of you to bring me these.’ She led the way through to the kitchen, filled one of the canalware jugs from the windowsill with water and arranged the flowers, their colours vibrant against the dark green enamelware, the red of the poppies picked up in the simple decoration.

  Tally said, ‘They look bonny. Your mum bought that jug down at Buckby Wharf.’ She shot Rosie a sympathetic glance and took in her drawn look and the dark shadows under her eyes that her tan couldn’t disguise.

  Rosie said, ‘My gran used to collect all that stuff – Roses and Castles – and Mum caught the bug and added to it. They’re pretty, aren’t they?’ She put the flowers on the table, letting her hand rest for a moment on the handle of the jug where her mother’s hand must have rested so many times, and then turned away to set a tray with coffee things. She led the way to the living room where Sam and Cara were eating chocolate biscuits and playing house in a tunnel-like den she’d constructed from a clothes horse and some sheets. They edged their way past and sat either side of the fireplace, the grate filled with pine cones, lending the room a resinous scent.

  ‘Tally … That’s an unusual name,’ Rosie said.

  ‘Not as unusual as Tallulah. That’s the trouble with having film-buff parents. I promise I’m not nearly as shocking as my namesake: no cocaine-snorting or cartwheeling sans underwear.’ Tally grinned, a wide smile that lit up her face and made Rosie feel instantly comfortable.

  ‘And you have two children … two girls?’ Rosie said, digging up the fragments that her mother had mentioned about May’s neighbour: she was a nurse on ICU, worked part-time on nights, early thirties, kind, had done a lot for May …

  Tally nodded. ‘Nicky and Amy. Nine and six.’

  Rosie thought of the child she’d seen. ‘Does Nicky have long brown hair?’

  ‘No, they’re both redheads. They get it from Rob; he’s a proper ginge. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I saw a little girl … in the garden here. She had a long plait, right down her back and a kind of dressing-up outfit. When I went out she’d gone.’

  Tally looked at her quickly. ‘It doesn’t sound like anyone from this street,’ she said. ‘It could be one of the kids from Dole Row; they’re a bit wild, would maybe climb over from the orchard.’

  Rosie picked up an uneasiness in her manner. ‘Dole Row,’ she repeated. ‘Did Mum or May ever mention seeing any children?’

  Tally hesitated. ‘Well … May did, but then she was getting a bit muddled, you know. She used to swear that things had been stolen: her chequebook or her purse or her keys. She said there was a child who came into the house and took things but we could usually find them if we looked together or they would turn up eventually.’

  Rosie stiffened. That morning she had been in the bedroom unpacking the remainder of her clothes when she heard feet on the stairs. It was quiet but for the click of the hangers as she moved them along the rail and she distinctly heard the slow creak of each tread, and a pause every few steps. She thought it was Sam playing a game; he was fond of creeping up on her and shouting ‘Boo!’ as he jumped out and she would pretend to be terrified and then swoop him up and tickle him. Preparing to feign horrified surprise, she hung the last skirt, went to the door and stepped out on to the landing. There was no one there. The sun from the window at the front of the house lay in bright lozenges on the sisal runner and motes of dust hung motionless and undisturbed in its shaft of light. Sam’s voice drifted up to her from the living room, saying, ‘No, Cara, don’t do that!’ She’d hurried down, shrugging the incident away as yet another oddity of her imagination.

  Tally was still speaking: ‘You know how it is with old people; they hide things in a safe place and forget where they put them …’

  Rosie nodded absently, trying to remember whether the back door had been unlocked. Was it possible that the girl had come in – just walked in uninvited? Surely a child of that age would know not to do that, would understand about privacy. Perhaps she wasn’t quite ‘all there’, as her mother would have put it. How weird! It made her feel uncomfortable, as though the peace of the house had been broken, her territory violated.

  ‘Once she had a roll of money propping up the cooker,’ Tally said. ‘Tucked under one foot to keep it level – more than two hundred pounds!’

  Rosie brought herself back to respond to her guest. ‘Poor May,’ she said, pouring coffee and then passing a mug to Tally. ‘Mum told me you rang her when May couldn’t cope any more but I never knew what actually happened.’

  ‘She got very confused: getting up in the middle of the night and doing her hoovering, setting off for town and then forgetting how to get home again, that sort of thing. We used to take her round a dinner but she wouldn’t eat it, said she could only manage tiny bits of soup. Then one day she turned the gas on and forgot to light it – bless her. Rob had to have the back door down to get in.’

  Rosie was shocked. ‘How awful! Mum never said!’

  ‘Once she was in hospital they did an assessment and sent her into care. I reckoned that if I went through May’s address book and rang everyone who was mentioned only by their Christian name I’d eventually hit a relative, and that’s how I found your mum. Rob was well impressed with my detective work.’ She grinned, that wide smile again. ‘He’s in the Force – Plod not CID but he’s working on it.’

  ‘I must visit her,’ Rosie said. ‘See how she is. That’s another thing I really must …’ She tailed off.

  Tally saw how her face clouded at the prospect, as if she felt so battered by events that it was hard to summon the strength to meet one more challenge. She’d noticed the nervous habit that Rosie had of undoing the hairclip that held her long hair in a twist at the back of her head, coiling it around her hand and then clipping and reclipping it back in place – an obsessive movement, patting and tidying an imagined disarray, restoring order. Her heart went out to her. On an impulse she said, ‘Look, why don’t you go and see her this afternoon and bring the kids round to me? It’d be easier on your own. You might find the visit quite difficult; she might not even recognise you, you know. She didn’t know me from Adam when I went.’

  Rosie assumed that the offer was made through politeness and thought that she shouldn’t impose. ‘Thank you, that’s really kind of you but …’

  Tally leant forward. ‘No, really, it’d be no trouble. Mine’ll be back at three. They’re on a summer play scheme doing football or rounders or somesuch, down at the Jubilee Fields. They’d love someone new to play with when they get back.’

  ‘Are you sure? Cara’s only a toddler; she might spoil their games.’

  ‘We’ll do play-dough.’ Tally smiled. ‘No problem.’ She finished her coffee. ‘That’s settled then. I’ll see you at three.’

  Rosie saw her to the door, Tally waving away her thanks. She felt her spirits lifting as she thought tha
t Tally was someone that she might be able to confide in, someone who just might become a friend.

  In the town, Rosie was ushered into Holly Court by a woman in a blue nurse’s uniform who introduced herself as the senior carer, Julie Todd. As she led her through the sitting room where two elderly men were playing whist, she told her how May was doing. ‘She has good days and bad days, mind. Sometimes she’ll be quite chatty; others you can’t get a peep out of her. We keep trying though; it’s really important to get the patients to interact. Do visit whenever you can.’

  At the door of the sunroom, she gestured to Rosie to wait. ‘About your mum … May won’t have any recollection that she’s passed on. We find it best not to mention it; it’s too upsetting for her – as if she’s newly bereaved each time. I’m sorry to have to bring it up but I felt I should let you know.’

  Rosie nodded. ‘Doesn’t she wonder where Mum is? Mum said she was visiting every day when she wasn’t staying with me.’

  ‘She asks sometimes. We just say she’ll be along tomorrow and five minutes later she’s forgotten all about it. I know it seems awful but it’s a kindness really.’ She peeped round the corner of the door. ‘I’ll just go and tell her she’s got a visitor. We find it helps to give a little warning; it lets them orientate themselves.’

  Nurse Todd went over to a group of chairs at the end of the room and Rosie held back in the doorway. The long, bright room had windows all along its length and French doors opening out on to the garden, which reminded Rosie of a park, with its neat edged lawns, formal beds and summerhouse. The back wall was lined with groups of empty ‘easy-rise’ chairs interspersed with coffee tables and jardinières filled with spider plants or mother-in-law’s tongue. Nearby, a lady with a paper on her knee, left open at a crossword puzzle, was dozing, her head bent down on to her chest.

  Nurse Todd beckoned Rosie over and she approached her aunt with some trepidation, anxious not to say the wrong thing.

  Nurse Todd said, in a loud, clear voice. ‘Here she is, May, this is your niece, Rosie, come to see you.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know. You just told me!’ May said peremptorily.

  Rosie sat down nervously on the high seat opposite her without proffering the kiss she’d intended. May looked so changed! Her hair, which was once coloured a silver ash and softly waved, was now a steely grey and cut in a straight bob, parted severely on the side with a plain metal hair slide girlishly pinning it back out of her eyes. The coarse hair of her eyebrows had grown thick, giving her a fierce look. And where were the slacks and smart fitted jackets that Rosie remembered? Instead May wore a long droopy skirt and blouse and a chunky cardi that was miles too big across the shoulders. Her body seemed to sit inside her clothes, strangely separate from them, as if a creature had set up home in an abandoned shell. ‘Hello, Aunty May,’ she said. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Have you brought biscuits?’ May leant forward and stared, her small, intent face and curled hands giving her a simian look. ‘You usually bring biscuits,’ she said accusingly.

  ‘I haven’t been to visit you here before, May. You haven’t seen me for a long time; do you remember me? It’s Rosie, your niece, Rosie.’

  ‘So you say,’ she said, looking her over. Then, as if she had found some familiarity in her face, she asked uncertainly, ‘Not Helena?’

  Rosie felt a lump in her throat at the mention of her mother’s name and at her aunt’s expectation of seeing her. She did as the nurse had told her. ‘She couldn’t come today,’ she said gently, ‘so I’ve come to visit you instead.’

  May turned her face away and stared out of the window. Rosie followed her gaze. A middle-aged man wearing a lanyard with an identity tag was setting up a game of hoopla. Rosie wondered if he was some kind of therapist or maybe a volunteer. The residents who had been sitting on the veranda of the summerhouse roused themselves and an old lady in a floppy sunhat shuffled forward to make the first throw, her shoulders hunched with arthritis, her head pushed forward like a turtle. She threw awkwardly and stood looking after the hoop as it rolled past the post. May’s eyes didn’t follow its motion; she stared as if looking straight through the scene as the hoop wobbled and settled flat on the grass.

  Rosie tried again. ‘Do you remember coming to stay with me in London? I only had Sam then, he was just a toddler – your great-nephew? Well, I have a little girl too now, called Cara. I’ll bring them to see you next time.’

  May looked back at her and seemed to be listening so Rosie ploughed on. ‘Do you remember when we went over to Kew Gardens and had a picnic? Helena and you, and Sam and Josh and I?’

  May nodded, at first tentatively and then more vigorously. ‘Hothouses,’ she said. ‘Flowering cacti. Pelargoniums. The child was cutting a tooth.’

  Rosie was surprised; she had forgotten that herself. What she remembered was how distracted Josh had been, how he kept getting up from the picnic rug and striding away every time he got a call. She had been annoyed because he was supposed to be taking time off so that they could have a family day, and instead of helping her entertain their guests he was dealing with work queries every five minutes and champing at the bit to go home – to get back to his computer, Rosie had imagined. Now she wondered if he hadn’t even then been keen to take the messages because they were from Tania; maybe they had even been seeing each other, arranging to meet, Josh estimating when he could get away … Was it possible? Tears came into her eyes. ‘That’s right,’ she said weakly, ‘Josh took us in the car.’

  As though May read her mind, at the mention of Josh she leant forward and said, as if confiding a secret, ‘Why you ever married him I don’t know.’ Then, looking around the room as if seeking an audience, she announced loudly, ‘The man’s an absolute arse!’

  Rosie, tickled by May’s colourful language, began to laugh.

  ‘Arse! Arse! Arse!’ May chanted. Rosie could do nothing to quieten her and laughed uncontrollably, finding a release. The lady dozing at the other end of the room stirred and blinked at them like a waking owl and then subsided back into sleep.

  ‘Pain in the arse!’ May ended triumphantly, slapping her knee. ‘And that is my considered opinion. Where is my bag?’ She cast about her and found it under her seat. ‘Do you like Maltesers?’ she asked, calm again.

  Rosie, dabbing her eyes, said that she did.

  May pulled a black leather handbag the size of a shopping bag out from under the chair and up on to her knee. She rummaged inside and then lost patience and began to unpack its contents on to the coffee table beside her.

  ‘What on earth have you got in there, May?’ Rosie said as the clutter of objects grew: a seed catalogue, several framed photographs, a Radio Times, a thriller with a bookmark in the first page, a crude piece of sewing in colourful felts with a needle dangling from it, a tube of indigestion pills … Rosie picked up a toothbrush, covered in fluff. ‘Why have you got your toothbrush in your bag?’

  ‘I’m not staying,’ May said. ‘I’m going home soon.’ She pulled out a box of Maltesers and offered it to her.

  Rosie took one and then, seeing that May was struggling to pick one up, trying to capture it between her fingers and the base of her stiff thumb, picked out another and popped it into May’s mouth. ‘Isn’t it heavy to carry around with you – your bag?’

  May shook her head. ‘There are thieves,’ she said in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘They come in your house. They send her to unlock the door and let them in. They hide behind doors and round the bend in the stairs.’ She grew more agitated and began pulling things from her bag as if searching for something else.

  ‘Who do they send?’ Rosie said.

  ‘The child. The bad child.’

  ‘What child?’ Rosie said uneasily, feeling a prickle at the back of her neck.

  Suddenly May upended the bag, tipping the remainder of its contents out on to the table: a battered purse, half a packet of Jaffa Cakes and a TV remote control. She began sorting through them, her hands jerking as she searched. Alar
med by her growing agitation, Rosie said, ‘What are you looking for, May? Can I help you find it?’

  ‘Keys, keys! Got to find my keys. Must be here somewhere. I have to get back or she’ll be getting in again, taking all my precious things. I have to hide them, lock them up!’

  ‘No one can get in, May, I promise you,’ Rosie said, thinking uncomfortably of the footsteps on the stairs. ‘All of your things are safe; I’ll take care of them.’

  May looked at her disbelievingly. ‘You can’t watch them all the time … She comes in and out, just as she chooses …’ She cast about for her keys amongst the objects on the table, knocking things to the floor.

  Rosie laid her hand on her arm and quickly picked up one of the silver-framed photos to try to distract her. ‘Where was this taken, May?’ In front of a caravan with an old-fashioned, round-cornered shape, a family group sat at a camping table spread with the remains of a meal. Rosie’s grandparents looked so young she almost didn’t recognise them: her grandfather in an open-necked shirt and with a glass of beer in front of him, and her grandmother holding a cigarette. May and Helena sat either side of them, both blonde and clearly sisters; May about eighteen, in a flowered sundress, a spotted hairband holding back her thick, back-combed hair and Helena, ten years younger, still a child in shorts with a pudding-basin haircut and a big smile for the camera.

  May stopped sifting through her belongings and took the picture from her. ‘Let me see; let me see.’ She passed her index finger over the glass as if the past was touchable. ‘Durdle Door, 1958, Clifftops Holiday Park,’ she rapped out. ‘You could walk down to the beach from the cliff path. It was beautiful, clean fine sand and the most amazing rocks standing out in the sea. I can see it in front of me, a huge …’ She moved her hands as if to describe a shape for which she’d lost the words. ‘Bent … a hole …’